<h1>1C. Identify critical threats</h1>
<p>Once you have settled on your priority targets, you need to identify the <strong>direct threats</strong> that
influence your targets. Direct threats are primarily <i>human activities</i> that immediately affect a
target (e.g., unsustainable fishing, hunting, oil drilling, construction of roads, pollution or
introduction of exotic invasive species), but they can be <i>natural phenomena</i> altered by human
activities (e.g., increase in water temperature caused by global warming) or <i>natural
phenomena whose impact is increased</i> by other human activities (e.g., a potential tsunami
that threatens the last remaining population of an Asian rhino).</p>
<p>As part of your analysis of the project's context, it is also important to prioritize the direct
threats that affect your targets so that you can concentrate your activities where they are most
needed. In particular, you should try to determine which are <strong>critical threats</strong> -- the ones that
are most important to address. There are a number of threat rating and ranking tools that can
be used to help in this prioritization process. Most of these assess the scope or extent of the
threat and its severity on the targets. Taken together, these two criteria assess overall threat
magnitude. Other commonly-used criteria include permanence/irreversibility and urgency.
Depending upon the circumstances, you can rate the threats as they affect an overall site or
you can rate them as they affect specific targets, including those that may define a thematic
program.</p>
Outputs for this standard practice include:
<ul><li>Identification of direct threats.</li>
<li>Rating or ranking of direct threats to identify critical threats.</li></ul>
